A Presentation by Dr. Terry Rude, Retired Educator and Board Chairman of the 16th Regiment, SC Volunteers Confederate Museum and Library

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Dr. Terry Rude came to Greenville, South Carolina from the West Coast. Motivated by a desire to learn something about Southern Culture, he discovered Confederate history. For decades, as a professor at Bob Jones University and a teacher in Greenville County public schools, he continued to study original source historical documents. During a lengthy search he discovered he had a Confederate ancestor and was qualified to become a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Dr. Rude, an unchallenged authority on factual Confederate History, was the speaker at the November 2015 dinner meeting of the 16th Regiment SCV and their guests. The 16th Reg. is currently the largest SCV camp in South Carolina and growing. It is the owner and operator of the Museum and Library of Confederate History in Greenville. Dr. Rude is the Chairman of the museum board of directors.

The topic of his presentation was “The Truth about the Confederate Cause.”

First Lieutenant Commander Rollis Smith introduced Dr. Rude and commended him for his “passion” about presenting the true history of the South. This is the primary mission of the Sons of Confederate Veterans given in the charge to the new organization by Lt. General Stephen Dill Lee when the organization of “Sons” was formed.

Dr. Rude recalled that on 26 June of this year, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, President Barack Hussein Obama declared that the Confederate battle flag “stands for slavery.” That was Friday. On Monday the 22nd of June, our governor declared that it was time for the battle flag to come down from the Confederate soldier monument because it made some people “feel bad” when they looked at it because it “stands for slavery.”

“Does the Confederate battle flag stand for slavery?” Dr. Rude asked.

He began to answer the question by saying, “It all started in 1775.”

On July 4, 1776, we declared our independence from England. The war was not won until 1783.

In 1787 the Constitutional Convention took place. A year later, four of the states, New York, Virginia, North Carolina and Rhode Island, had not ratified right away because they were very nervous and afraid that the federal government would become what it is today. “A giant conglomerate” that was like the English government they were getting away from. Three of those states made statements reserving the right to secede.

Dr Rude read the statement reserving the right to secede by Virginia in the ratification documents. Because adopted rules applied to all states all of the 13 states had the right to secede.

The Tariff of Abomination came in 1828. It punished the Southern states that were exporting cotton and tobacco.

Another tariff was placed on the Southern states in 1832. Vice President John C. Calhoun and the Ratification movement blunted but did not eliminate the tariffs.

In 1860 South Carolina seceded from the Union. Soon there were 7 states that had seceded. The real issue was the “hatred the North had for the South.”

When Lincoln was elected President, it became apparent to many observers that war was imminent.

Revisionist historians fabricating a case against the South have left out the proof that Lincoln was a notorious racist.

In his first inaugural address, Lincoln made his position on slavery clear.

“I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere in the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe that I have no lawful basis to do so and I have no inclination to do so. In your hands, not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.”

Lincoln brought up the issue of “civil war” when no one else was talking about war. The seceded states did not want war; they wanted to be unmolested.

South Carolina received word that Lincoln was sending a fleet of warships to reinforce Fort Sumter under the guise of providing food. South Carolina seized the fort knowing that loss of control of the fort would leave Charleston vulnerable to attack.

Lincoln called for the states to furnish 75,000 troops. Some of the states refused. Abraham Lincoln caused the war. The South was defending itself from northern aggression.

“What about slavery?” Dr. Rude asked.

“The most you can say about slavery is that slavery motivated secession. But that is not precisely true.” All the agitation from the north and the tariffs was a part of the mix.

There was no love for Negroes in the North. Lincoln’s Illinois would not allow free blacks to live there. They were permitted to pass through, but not establish residence.

The Emancipation Proclamation freed no slaves. It did not apply to the states in the Union. The people in New York City believed the propaganda and began to riot, fearful that freed Negroes would take their jobs. The riots were also in opposition to the military draft, but the New Yorkers took revenge on the blacks in the city and murdered many of them. Exact figures have been hidden or distorted by revisionist historians.

Lincoln vented his dislike for all Blacks during the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

“There is a national disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the black and white races that make them politically and socially our equals. My own feelings will not admit to this. I will say then that I am not and never have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters nor jurors of Negroes, nor for interfering with white people. And I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and the black races.  I as much as any man is in favor of assigning this superior position to the white race.”

Why did Confederate Soldiers fight? Was it to maintain slavery?

“We can’t dig up Confederate soldiers and ask them why they fought,” however, we can read what they wrote after the war that is available today, Dr. Rude said.

Artillery Lt. Robert Styles wrote: “Why did they volunteer and give their lives? Surely it was not for slavery they fought. The great conflict will never be properly comprehended by the man who looks upon it as a war for the perpetuation of slavery.”

A VMI cadet who served in the Confederate Army wrote: “Slavery was a curse. Thank God it is gone.”

Another soldier wrote that he was pleased that his commander “did not draw his sword in defense of the institution of slavery.”

Dr. Rude mentioned one area of the South where 15,000 individuals volunteered to serve in the Confederate army and there were only one or two slaves in the entire area.

“Why did they do it?” Dr. Rude asked in conclusion. “Because the Yankees were coming down and pillaging our houses and pillaging our towns and killing our people.”

 

 

 

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